There are no specific rules about leaving comments, however we do ask that you not vote for yourself. If we find that you've been voting for yourself, those votes will be deleted. If you're a repeat offender, you may get warnings (see the Warning System entry) or other actions taken against you. Essentially, you can't vote for yourself because it is unfair. The voting system is there for your readers to use, not yourself. You will probably not even be able to vote for yourself in the first place, there is an IP filtering system in place for that kind of thing. :)

Drunk Duck's Terms of Service also outline that users are not to engage in trollish behavior, such as flame baiting and being disrespectful to other members. This applies to comments as well. It is fine to say negative things about a comic (there is nothing wrong with honesty), but don't be a jerk about it. "Graphics suck, dialogue sucks, story sucks, your comic just sucks" is neither helpful nor respectful. If you go around being rude to people in your comments, they will likely end up being reported, and then you will accumulate warnings and freeze yourself out of DD.

Additionally, we ask that, if someone is leaving nasty comments for you - don't go retaliating on your own. Just report them to us and we can get rid of them.

The Anonymous feature isn't there to be abused, or for someone to abuse other members. It's there so people can leave honest comments without fear of retaliation, feuds, or publicity. (Surprisingly, some people who put their comics up for the world to see are quite thin-skinned and take any criticism as an attack.) Some people just like leaving normal comments without letting anyone else know who they are.

A snipe is a vote of 1 or 2, accompanied by little to no attempt at being tactful, helpful, or positive. While the comment may have been meant honestly, we ask that DD users be respectful to other members. Unfortunately it is all too easy to simply vote someone's comic with 1s and 2s out of spite or retaliation, which is why we now need people to "justify" their low vote. A vote of 1 or 2 with the comment "your drawing sucks" is qualitatively different than a comment of "Your linework is shaky, you need to work on drawing smooth lines" (for instance).

If you feel that someone has sniped you, just report their comment to the admins, and they will decide whether it is okay or bad. If you don't want to bother reporting it, there is also the mute function.
 

Firstly, if someone is leaving you comments that you don't like, don't go retaliating against their comic. Just report or mute their comment, the options which appear above each comment:

 If you mute the comment, their vote will stay, but the text of their comment will not be visible. Instead it will say "this comment has been muted."

If you report the comment, a note will appear in its place saying that the comment is "under admin review." It then goes to a bank of reported comments which the admins check (usually) about once a day. If they agree that it is an inappropriate comment (such as the one above), they will delete the comment and its placeholder will disappear off your page, and the vote will not be factored in your comic's statistics. If they deem it "okay" (ie, not offensive or a snipe), it will reappear on your page. You can then mute it if you want, but you can't re-report it.

If you feel that someone is targeting you specifically, and continuously leaves inappropriate comments for you, please let one of the admins know. We don't always see commenting patterns, but if you bring something to our attention we can often do something about it.

Unfortunately, at this time, if you want Drunk Duck to host your comic you must also allow users to leave comments and votes for it. In the future DD may implement separate "areas" for comics that do and don't want voting, but that is a ways away.

If you are familiar with bbcode (developed on forums software), you can use some of the same codes in your comments and author's notes: